Newport Folk Festival, Festival Field, Newport, RI, 7-25-1968 to 7-28-1968, Part 1 - Taj Mahal & Elizabeth Cotten

I write this in December 2023. For the past few months, I've put a special effort into posting big rock festivals, since it seems to me those often get overlooked. I just reorganized the "labels" sidebar a bit: if you look under "Various Artists," you'll see eight such festivals I've posted already. Here's the ninth. In my opinion, it's an extra special one, because many of the artists here have few if any publicly available live recordings to their names.

The festival I'm posting this time is the "Newport Folk Festival 1968." At the time, there was a confusing number of Newport festivals. There was a yearly Newport Folk Festival and Newport Jazz Festival. Both were held in Newport, Rhode Island, and both had been happening since the 1950s. But there also was a Newport Pop Festival that only took place in 1968 and 1969. These were held in Southern California, and had no connection with the more established Newport festivals on the East Coast, except maybe they were taking advantage of the name.

Anyway, as you can imagine, the "Newport Folk Festival" tried to focus on folk music. But that was increasingly difficult in 1968, because the folk music movement had largely died out around 1965 and morphed into folk rock. Folk music would make a comeback in the early 1970s with the singer-songwriter movement, but that hadn't happened yet. So in 1968, the organizers of this festival tried to broaden their appeal by including some musical artists who weren't really folk music at all, such as B. B. King, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, and Janis Joplin's band, Big Brother and the Holding Company. As a result, it was the most popular Newport festival yet, with about 17,000 people attending over several days. However, the crowd was an uneasy mix of folk purists wanting to see the more traditional acts, and rock fans especially there to see Janis Joplin. 

If you want to know more about the festival as a whole, I highly suggest this Rolling Stone Magazine article, which was written shortly after the festival ended:

The Newport Folk Festival: 1968 (rollingstone.com)

The conflict I speak of was even mentioned in the article's subtitle: "Torn Between Two Worlds."

I don't know how or why, but for some reason it seems the vast majority of this festival was professionally recorded, and has been available in bootleg form for many years. (As far as I can tell, only Joan Baez's set has been officially released, along with a few other songs that have gone on various artists compilations.) It seems previous festivals were recorded too, but all that's in the public domain are the little bits that have made into onto official albums. But while one can find these more extensive 1968 performances here and there if you dig deep, I've never seen them put together in a coherent way until now.

I've taken what I consider the best and most popular sets and made ten albums out of them. (The artists I've leaving out are obscure folk acts you've probably never heard of them, many of them doing gospel music.) Some of the sets were rather short, so in several cases I'm putting two sets onto one album.

This is one such album featuring sets from two musical acts. The first one, Taj Mahal, is a well known blues musician today. But at the time of this concert, his solo career was just getting started. (He'd been in the band the Rising Sons for a couple of years prior to this.) At the time of this concert, he'd only released one solo album, simply called "Taj Mahal," earlier in the year. Some of the acts actually played more than one set at the festival, though generally only one set was recorded. However, Taj Mahal is a rare case where two sets were recorded, so I'll present his set set later, on a different album, since it happened a few days later.

One of his songs, "EZ Rider" got cut off after only about a minute. It so happens that he also played this song in his other set later in the festival. So I used that version to fill in the missing portion. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in the title. That was the last song from his set that we have here, so it's fairly likely there was more to his set that didn't get recorded.

Elizabeth Cotten is an extremely unlikely musical figure. Here's her Wikipedia entry:

Elizabeth Cotten - Wikipedia

She played guitar when she was a teenager, and that's when she wrote her most famous song, "Freight Train." But poverty forced her to begin working as a maid at the age of nine. Eventually, she got married and had children, and gave up playing music altogether. It was only in her sixties that her musical talent was rediscovered, due to the fact that she was working as a housekeeper for the family of famous folk singer Pete Seeger. She finally put out some records, and did some touring. She won a Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording in 1984, and died in 1987 when she was ninety-four years old.

Here's what her Wikipedia entry has to say: "She was a self-taught left-handed guitarist who played a guitar strung for a right-handed player, but played it upside down. This position meant that she would play the bass lines with her fingers and the melody with her thumb. Her signature alternating bass style has become known as 'Cotten picking.' NPR stated 'her influence has reverberated through the generations, permeating every genre of music.'"

So Cotten is very musically influential, and two of her songs, "Freight Train" and "Shake Sugaree," have been covered by dozens of famous musicians. However, she didn't record or tour that much. Two official live albums have been released, but I believe this is the only bootleg recording of her. I have to warn you that she lived most of her life up to this point as a maid, not a musician, and her vocals here were sometimes off key. The last song though is sung by her granddaughter Brenda Evans, who has a more conventionally trained voice.

This album is 41 minutes long. The Taj Mahal set is 25 minutes long, and the Elizabeth Cotten one is 16 minutes long.

By the way, note that the songs are numbered 001, 002, 003 and so on instead of 01, 02, 03, etc... That's because there are over 100 songs from this festival as a whole, and the numbering of each subsequent album in this series continues where the last one left off.

001 Dark Dusty Road [Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad] (Taj Mahal)
002 The Cuckoo (Taj Mahal)
003 Checkin' Up on My Baby (Taj Mahal)
004 talk (Taj Mahal)
005 She Caught the Katy [And Left Me a Mule to Ride] (Taj Mahal)
006 talk (Taj Mahal)
007 EZ Rider [Edit] (Taj Mahal)
008 Do Lord Remember Me (Elizabeth Cotten)
009 Bye and Bye (Elizabeth Cotten)
010 Freight Train (Elizabeth Cotten)
011 talk (Elizabeth Cotten)
012 Shake Sugaree (Elizabeth Cotten & Brenda Evans)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/o6yG9aDH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/sWdvJkELNCmTbyB/file

The two photos on the cover come from this exact concert. I don't know if the Taj Mahal photo is from this set or the other one he did later in the festival, but I'm guessing it's from this one due to it taking place in the day time. (I think his other set was at night, though I'm not entirely sure.)

Tracy Chapman - Austin City Limits, Zilker Metropolitan Park, Austin, TX, 8-3-2003

Tracy Chapman was massively popular in the late 1980s and through much of the 1990s. Her debut album "Tracy Chapman" sold about 20 million copies worldwide, and her 1995 album "New Beginning" sold five million copies in the US alone. But strangely, I've found it very difficult to find any concert recordings at a soundboard level after about 1991. That's not helped by the fact that she's never released a live album. I've previously posted a 2008 concert by her, but that was just a very good audience bootleg. Finally, I've found a worthy later live recording, and here it is.

The reason this sounds so good is because it's from the TV show "Austin City Limits." It seems to me Chapman didn't do a lot of the usual promotional appearances most music stars do. She wasn't that interested in fame, and in fact he music career pretty much stopped altogether after about 2008, with no more album releases or tours from then until now (as I write this in late 2023). But I came across an article about this concert that said the producer of "Austin City Limits" was a big fan of Chapman's music, and pushed hard to get her on the show.

This concert remains unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent. Unfortunately though, it looks like it was edited down to fit in a one hour time slot. There also is no banter, except for one extended discussion she had about seeing seeing bats in Austin, of all things.

I'm not a fan of a lot of Chapman's studio albums after the first couple. I often don't like the production, which seemed to be moving in the dreaded "adult contemporary" direction, and a few weak songs would drag down the good ones. But in this concert she played a mix of newer (at the time) songs with the well known ones mostly from her debut album, and I think all the songs here are really good. This was why I was keen to hear an excellent sounding concert from her later years, to put her later songs in a better way. 

By the way, the full video of this concert is available on YouTube if you want to watch it and not just hear it. And if you have other concerts from her of this caliber from after 1911, please let me know so I can share them.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Say Hallelujah (Tracy Chapman)
02 For My Lover (Tracy Chapman)
03 Smoke and Ashes (Tracy Chapman)
04 Baby Can I Hold You (Tracy Chapman)
05 Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
06 Another Sun (Tracy Chapman)
07 talk (Tracy Chapman)
08 Telling Stories (Tracy Chapman)
09 You're the One (Tracy Chapman)
10 Talkin' 'bout a Revolution (Tracy Chapman)
11 Give Me One Reason (Tracy Chapman)
12 I Am Yours (Tracy Chapman)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Q3PMBnkU

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/TMnqIVRkxz1w4B1/file

The cover is a screenshot I took of a YouTube video of this exact concert. In January 2025, I sharpened it a bit with the Krea AI program.

Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne - Joan Osborne Sings Grateful Dead Songs, Volume 3 (2006)

I've previously posted two albums of Joan Osborne singing Grateful Dead songs with Phil Lesh and Friends in 2006. Here's a third album. There's one more to come.

As I said with the previous volumes, there's a lot of charm in hearing how Jerry Garcia and Bobby Weir of the Grateful Dead originally sung these songs. But hearing Osborne sing them is a different thing altogether. Not only does she have a remarkable voice, but it's interesting hear a woman sing these songs. Plus, you still got very Dead-like jamming thanks to Dead bassist Phil Lesh and the other musicians.

All the songs here have soundboard level quality, due to the fact that all the concerts by this band from 2006 were officially released at one point. I've put them in chronological order.

This time, all the songs are Grateful Dead originals, except for "I Know You Rider" and "Turn on Your Lovelight." But the Dead played those two zillions of times. And "Magnolia Mountain" was originally by Ryan Adams, and was written after the Dead had already broken up.

This album is an hour and 17 minutes long.

01 I Know You Rider (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
02 Turn on Your Lovelight (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
03 High Time (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
04 Magnolia Mountain (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
05 Althea (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
06 Candyman (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
07 China Doll (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)
08 Stella Blue (Phil Lesh & Friends with Joan Osborne)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16029883/JoanO_2006a_JoanOsbrneSngsGrtefulDdSngsVolum3_atse.zip.html

The cover is a photo of Osborne from the Bonnaroo Festival in 2006.

Depeche Mode - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 11-2-1984

Here's the second Depeche Mode BBC sessions album. Once again, it's a full concert. I plan on posting at least one more album in this series.

This BBC concert took place only one year after the last one I posted. But in the meantime the band released the album "Some Great Reward," which featured some hits like "People Are People," "Master and Servant," "Blasphemous Rumours," and "Somebody," raising the profile of the band. So the set list has a lot of differences.

Many versions of this concert are missing songs. But I found the most comprehensive version at a Depeche Mode wiki site. Unfortunately, the final encore of "Shout" and "Just Can't Get Enough" is still missing, since those were never broadcast in any version of this concert.

This unreleased concert has excellent sound quality. But it's one of those cases where what happened on stage was recorded so well that there's very little of the crowd. There's also very little banter. At times, it almost sounds like the band was practicing their concert set list in a studio setting. That has pluses and minuses, but I decided to keep it as it is instead of patching in a bunch of audience applause.

This album is an hour and 20 minutes long.

01 Something to Do (Depeche Mode)
02 Two Minute Warning (Depeche Mode)
03 Puppets (Depeche Mode)
04 If You Want (Depeche Mode)
05 People Are People (Depeche Mode)
06 Leave in Silence (Depeche Mode)
07 New Life (Depeche Mode)
08 Shame (Depeche Mode)
09 Somebody (Depeche Mode)
10 Ice Machine (Depeche Mode)
11 Lie to Me (Depeche Mode)
12 Blasphemous Rumours (Depeche Mode)
13 Told You So (Depeche Mode)
14 Master and Servant (Depeche Mode)
15 Photographic (Depeche Mode)
16 Everything Counts (Depeche Mode)
17 talk (Depeche Mode)
18 See You (Depeche Mode)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16029799/DepcheMde_1984_BBSessonsVolum2InConcrtHmmersmthOdeonLondnBrtain__11-2-1984_atse.zip.html 

The cover photo is from a concert in Schleiden, Germany, in April 16, 1984.

Beck - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: BBC 4 Sessions, Union Chapel, London, Britain, 4-28-2003

Here were are with Beck performing for the BBC again. This is a particularly nice concert due to the excellent sound quality and varied set list.

At the time of this concert, Beck was still promoting "Sea Change," the album he'd released late in 2002. It was a critically acclaimed album, and it was a return to his mellow, acoustic-based style. So this album certainly has a lot of acoustic music on it, especially performances of songs from "Sea Change." But he also played with a full band on many songs, and he wasn't afraid to show off his funky side as well. He even did a cover of "Hot in Herre," which was a Number One hit in the US by the rapper Nelly the year before.

This unreleased concert was broadcast on the BBC TV show "BBC 4 Sessions." So you can watch the entire thing on YouTube.

This album is 58 minutes long. Once again, I strongly suspect it was edited down by the BBC to fit into an hour-long time slot.

01 talk (Beck)
02 The Golden Age (Beck)
03 talk (Beck)
04 It's All in Your Mind (Beck)
05 talk (Beck)
06 Guess I'm Doing Fine (Beck)
07 talk (Beck)
08 Lonesome Tears (Beck)
09 Nicotine and Gravy - Where It's At (Beck)
10 Lost Cause (Beck)
11 Ship in a Bottle (Beck)
12 talk (Beck)
13 14 Rivers, 14 Floods - Beautiful Way (Beck)
14 Loser (Beck)
15 Nobody's Fault but My Own (Beck)
16 Lord Only Knows (Beck)
17 Hot in Herre (Beck)
18 One Foot in the Grave (Beck)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HuKotWcc

The cover is a screenshot I took from the YouTube video of this exact concert.

In September 2026, I used the Ask Gemini program to improve the image quality. 

Mark Knopfler & the Notting Hillbillies - BBC Sessions (1988-1990)

I previously posted a live album of Mark Knopfler and the Notting Hillbillies. Between that and this BBC sessions album, you should get a good sense of what the band was all about. I prefer both to the band's lone studio album, in 1990, "Missing... and Presumed Having a Good Time," which was a little overproduced and lacked many lead vocals by Knopfler.

I posted the live album before this one because I wanted to start out strongly and that album has better sound quality overall than this one. That's not to say this one has bad sound quality, but it's taken from five different radio sessions, and some sound better than others. They appear chronologically, and it just so happens that the first one sounds the worst and the last two sound the best. So if you're disappointed with the sound quality, keep at it, it gets better.

I explained about the Notting Hillbillies when I posted the live album. Suffice to say that it was a true band, not just Mark Knopfler and a backing band. For instance, he shared lead vocal duties, and only sings lead on about a third of the songs here. But at the same time, Knopler was the clear star, due to his fame from his previous band Dire Straits, and the main people listen to this is to hear his singing and lead guitar work. Don't worry, while he doesn't sing all the time, his guitar is all over this.

Everything here is officially unreleased. The first two songs actually come from a 1988 BBC session, which I think is before the band officially became the Notting Hillbillies, but it was the same group of musicians. The rest are from 1990. Most everything else is from various BBC TV or radio sessions, except for the last five songs. Those come from a concert broadcast on a different British radio station, Radio Clyde. That features highlights from a concert the band did in Glasgow, Scotland, in April 1990. 

"Tennessee Blues" has "[Edit]" in the title because there was a spot near the end of the song where a few seconds of music were missing. Luckily it was during a repetition of the chorus, so I patched it up with a part of a chorus from earlier in the song.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Weapon of Prayer (Notting Hillbillies)
02 Please Baby (Notting Hillbillies)
03 Feel like Going Home (Notting Hillbillies)
04 That's Where I Belong (Notting Hillbillies)
05 Blues Stay Away from Me (Notting Hillbillies)
06 When It Comes to You (Notting Hillbillies)
07 Tennessee Blues [Edit] (Notting Hillbillies)
08 The Next Time I'm in Town (Notting Hillbillies)
09 Bewildered (Notting Hillbillies)
10 Setting Me Up (Notting Hillbillies)
11 Down the Road Apiece (Notting Hillbillies)
12 Let's Have Some Fun Tonight (Notting Hillbillies)
13 One Way Gal (Notting Hillbillies)
14 talk (Notting Hillbillies)
15 Running On Down This Road (Notting Hillbillies)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16026070/NottngHillbllies_1988-1990_BBSessons_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is the same as the one featured on the cover of the band's only studio album. However, that version was in black and white, and only filled up the middle section of the cover. I was lucky to find a color version of the same photo.

Marshall Crenshaw - The Human Jukebox, Volume 4: 1992-1994

Here's another album containing cover versions that Marshall Crenshaw didn't put on his studio albums. He's so prolific with covers in concert, even though his albums are usually all originals, that I have five more volumes of these. (Thus his nickname, "The Human Jukebox.")

The first thing I have to say is that anyone who does a cover of the great Who obscurity "Odorono" is A-OK in my book. :) That's a good sign right there of the depth of Crenshaw's musical knowledge, which shows up again with the variety of cover songs he does here. 

Just like the last few songs on the previous volume, the first five songs here are from a radio show where radio listeners called in and requested cover songs. Crenshaw and others in the ad-hoc band then tried their best to play them, if they could remember them. So there are a bit rough. That's especially noticable with "And I Love Her," which gets off to a rocky start where Crenshaw sometimes has to call out the chord changes. But in my opinion that's all the more impressive, that he and the band was winging it.

All but the last three are officially unreleased. Of the last three, " I'd Do It Over Again" is from an Arthur Alexander tribute album, and "Silver Wings" is from a Merle Haggard tribute album. "Knowing Me, Knowing You" is from a Crenshaw live album, "Live: My Truck Is My Home." But all the rest are from soundboard bootlegs or radio shows, and sound excellent.

This album is 50 minutes long.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 Don't Let Me Down - Beatles
02 And I Love Her - Beatles
03 Sunshine Superman - Donovan
04 I Fought the Law - Bobby Fuller Four
05 Rock Around the Clock - Bill Haley & His Comets
06 Big River - Johnny Cash
07 [Get Your Kicks On] Route 66 - Bobby Troup
08 Don't Fear the Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult
09 Odorono - Who
10 I'm Movin' On - Hank Snow
11 The Lucky One - Freedy Johnston
12 Hitch Hike - Marvin Gaye
13 Rocket 88 - Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats
14 Pretty Flamingo - Manfred Mann
15 I'd Do It Over Again - Arthur Alexander
16 Knowing Me, Knowing You - ABBA
17 Silver Wings - Merle Haggard

And here's the usual song list:

01 Don't Let Me Down (Marshall Crenshaw)
02 And I Love Her (Marshall Crenshaw)
03 Sunshine Superman (Marshall Crenshaw)
04 I Fought the Law (Marshall Crenshaw)
05 Rock Around the Clock (Marshall Crenshaw)
06 Big River (Marshall Crenshaw)
07 [Get Your Kicks On] Route 66 (Marshall Crenshaw)
08 Don't Fear the Reaper (Marshall Crenshaw)
09 Odorono (Marshall Crenshaw)
10 I'm Movin' On (Marshall Crenshaw)
11 The Lucky One (Marshall Crenshaw)
12 Hitch Hike (Marshall Crenshaw)
13 Rocket 88 (Marshall Crenshaw)
14 Pretty Flamingo (Marshall Crenshaw)
15 I'd Do It Over Again (Marshall Crenshaw)
16 Knowing Me, Knowing You (Marshall Crenshaw)
17 Silver Wings (Marshall Crenshaw)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16025994/MarshallC_1992-1994_ThHumnJkeboxVolum4_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken in New York City in October 1994.

David Gilmour - On TV and Radio, Volume 3: 2006-2017

Here's the third and final album of David Gilmour "on TV and radio." As I explained with the previous two volumes, this started out as a BBC sessions series, but I found a bunch of interesting recordings from non-BBC TV and radio shows, so I expanded the scope. That said, this volume does happen to be particularly BBC heavy, with all but four of the tracks from BBC TV or radio shows.

By chance, the four tracks not from the BBC are the ones that are officially released. "Dark Globe," a song written by Pink Floyd's first leader, Syd Barrett, was recorded at an unknown location in 2006 and included on the "Remember That Night" DVD. "Astronomy Domine" and "Echoes" were both done in the studio with former Pink Floyd keyboard player Richard Wright, and were also included as bonus tracks on the "Remember That Night" DVD. "Wots... Uh the Deal," a great song from the 1972 Pink Floyd album "Obscured by Clouds," was played at the Gdansk concert that was the subject of the "Live at the Gdansk" DVD. However, I've included it here because it was merely included as an iTunes only bonus track.

That leaves nine unreleased songs. The first three tracks are from a 2006 appearance on the "Later... with Jools Holland" TV show.  Tracks 8 and 9 are from another appearance on that same show two years later. Note that "Remember a Day" was written and originally sung by Richard Wright, and was done as a tribute, since he'd died in the days before the TV show appearance. Track 10 is from a different BBC appearance in 2008. Then tracks 11 and 12 are from yet another appearance on "Later... with Jools Holland," this time in 2015. Finally, the last song was done in the studio for the TV show "Front Row."

This album is an hour and four minutes long.

01 Take a Breath (David Gilmour)
02 On an Island (David Gilmour)
03 Arnold Layne (David Gilmour)
04 Dark Globe (David Gilmour)
05 Wot's... Uh the Deal (David Gilmour)
06 Astronomy Domine (David Gilmour with Richard Wright)
07 Echoes (David Gilmour with Richard Wright)
08 Remember a Day (David Gilmour)
09 The Blue (David Gilmour)
10 Here I Go (David Gilmour)
11 Rattle That Lock (David Gilmour)
12 Today (David Gilmour)
13 A Boat Lies Waiting (David Gilmour)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16030500/DavdGlmour_2006-2017_OnTVndRdioVolum3_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2006.

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Mardi Gras - Alternate Version (1972-1973)

Today, I got a comment that four bonus tracks I'd put on the 1976 unreleased John Fogerty album "Hoodoo" were missed. I checked, and this is true. When I was redoing all the links a few months ago, those were gone from that album because I'd moved them in my music collection. I could have just put them back, but I thought about it, and figured out something better to do with them.

Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) had a great run of albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but they ended on a bum note with the 1972 album "Mardi Gras." They broke up shortly after that album was released, and it's not hard to understand why if you listen to the album. At the time, Rolling Stone Magazine even called it the worst album ever released by a major rock act. I think I've made a much better alternate version. 

But before I get to that, let me explain why the officially released version is considered so bad. John Fogerty was the clear leader of CCR, writing all the songs, singing them, and producing them. He even did things like the backing vocals on the recordings. But as the band's fame grew, the other three band members - rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty (John's brother), bassist Stu Cook, and drummer Doug Clifford - chafed under John Fogerty's musical domination of the band.

In late 1970, the other band members told John Fogerty they wanted more creative involvement. John said no. His brother Tom then left the band in early 1971 for a solo career (which wasn't that successful). Then what happened next is disputed. John claims the remaining two band members, Cook and Clifford, demanded they be given more creative control, and he was forced to agree or break up the band. However, Cook and Clifford claim John demanded that they each write and sing an equal portion of songs on the next album.

Personally, although John was known to be controlling and stubborn, I believe his side of the story. The evidence is right there in the lyrics of the "Mardi Gras" song "Take It like a Friend," written by Cook:

If maybe you'd move over, gave someone else a chance to try their luck
Instead, you run up closer, tryin' to grab a page before they close the book

Clearly, the whole song, and that bit in particular, is about Cook (and Clifford) wanting more creative involvement in the band, with John resisting and being controlling.

But in any case, when "Mardi Gras" came out, the album was basically divided into songs written and sung by Fogerty, Cook, and Clifford. Fogerty's songs were of a high standard, as usual, including two hit singles, while Cook's and Clifford's were... well... not so good. Neither of them were blessed with great singing voices, and their songs were generally subpar. 

That said, while John Fogerty was put in a tough spot of giving them more creative control or breaking up the band, he was kind of an ass to put the album out like that and watch it fall on its face. But tensions were high, and everyone involved made mistakes. In retrospect, it probably would have been better for everyone involved if John had just let the band break up before recording "Mardi Gras." As it was, the break up was so painful that John never truly reconciled with Cook, Clifford, or even his brother Tom.

From what I understand, the real villain in the story is Saul Zaentz, the owner of their record company. Before getting famous, CCR had signed a very bad record deal, forcing the band to release albums quickly (the released three in 1969 alone!) while getting only a small percentage of royalties. By 1971, CCR wanted to renegotiate their contract in light of the band's massive success. But Zaentz played the game of divide and conquer, flattering Cook and Clifford that they could be solo stars, and promising to give them solo record deals. In that way, Zaentz stopped the band from presenting a united front in their financial battle against him. But in so doing, he killed the goose that laid the golden eggs, by helping to break the band up entirely. (Needless to say, the promised solo album deals never happened.)

Anyway, let me get to what's on this alternate album. The official "Mardi Gras" album is short, only 28 minutes long. I cut it down even more by getting rid of nearly all the songs written and/or sung by Cook or Clifford: "Take It like a Friend," "Need Someone to Hold," "Tearin' Up the Country," "Sail Away," and "Door to Door." The only one I kept is "What Are You Gonna Do," written and sung by Clifford, who at least was a better singer than Cook.

As for the Fogerty songs, "Someday Never Comes" and "Sweet Hitch-Hiker" were hit singles, so those were no-brainers to keep. "Hello Mary Lou" is a serviceable cover of a Gene Pitney song sung by Fogerty, so that was good enough to keep. "Lookin' for a Reason" is a rather weak and generic Fogerty song, but it's still a Fogerty song, so I kept it. Besides, the lyrics are interesting in that they're his take on the slow collapse of the band.

If that was the entire album, it would only be 15 minutes long, which would be way too short. But remember those four bonus tracks I mentioned at the beginning of this write-up? In 1973, Fogerty released the album "The Blue Ridge Rangers." It consisted entirely of covers of country songs, and all the instruments and vocals were done by Fogerty alone. That's a separate thing entirely, so I didn't include any songs from that. 

However, still in 1973, Fogerty released two stand-alone singles containing original songs on the A- and B-sides. Those are the four bonus tracks I'd put on "Hoodoo" that I'm moving here. True, they're not CCR, but they're a better fit chronologically on a 1972 album than a 1976 album. Besides, they sound exactly like CCR songs. They're also really good songs, even though both singles stiffed. I'm sure they would have done much better if they'd been released under the CCR name.

But that's not all I included. Remember, John's brother Tom left CCR in 1971 to pursue a solo career. Unlike Cook and Clifford, he had singing talent and songwriting talent, although he struggled mightily to come up with enough good songs to fill entire albums. His first two albums, released in 1972, didn't have any stand out tracks, in my opinion. But I've included two from this third album, the songs "Joyful Resurrection" and "Mystic Isle Avalon," and one song from his fourth album, "What Did I Know." For all three of the songs, he was backed by Cook and Clifford, so one could argue that those were still CCR songs, just led by Tom instead of John. "Mystic Isle Avalon" even has some guitar parts by John. He recorded his parts separately from the others, but still, it was the one and only time after CCR broke up that all four original band members played on the same song.

For all three of those Tom songs, it's pretty easy to think they're CCR songs sung by John. Being brothers, they had very similar voices. (Tom died in 1990, which is why I use the past tense.) Plus, while lots of Tom's solo stuff was done in different styles, these three songs clearly were done in the general CCR style.

So there you have it. Admittedly, this album is pretty far removed from the official version of "Mardi Gras." But that album needed serious help. Also, this is a fitting place to put those four songs Fogerty only put out on singles. (By the way, to this day they still haven't been re-released as bonus tracks or anything like that, although Fogerty did perform one of them, "Comin' Down the Road," on a live album.)

This album is 36 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 Someday Never Comes (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
02 Lookin' for a Reason (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
03 What Are You Gonna Do (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
04 Hello Mary Lou (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
05 Sweet Hitch-Hiker (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
06 Joyful Resurrection (Tom Fogerty & Creedence Clearwater Revival)
07 Mystic Isle Avalon (Tom Fogerty & Creedence Clearwater Revival)
08 You Don't Owe Me (John Fogerty)
09 Back in the Hills (John Fogerty)
10 Comin' Down the Road (John Fogerty)
11 Ricochet [Instrumental] (John Fogerty)
12 What Did I Know (Tom Fogerty & Creedence Clearwater Revival)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16025208/CreedCR_1972_MrdiGrsAltrnatVrsion_atse.zip.html

"Mardi Gras" has such a bad reputation that merely looking at the official album cover gave me bad vibes. So I decided to make a new one using the same general style. I kept the circular shape of the band's name, and the font colors. "Mardi Gras" had been written in small letters on a tambourine in the original. I kept the lettering but enlarged the words greatly and made them black. Then I took a photo of the three remaining band members from late 1971 and put it in the center of the cover, over a picture of a girl holding the tambourine.

James - BBC In Concert, Brixton Academy, London, Britain, 12-9-1993

When it comes to the British band James, generally speaking, I only like them at about the "greatest hits" level. However, I make an exception for their 1993 album "Laid." I think a lot of people agree. If you look at their page at the crowd-sourced rateyourmusic.com, "Laid" gets the highest rating, as well as way more votes than their other albums. Perhaps it was the fact that they collaborated with producer Brian Eno for the first time that took their creativity to a higher level. But whatever the reason, I consider that a five-star album.

Given my opinion on that, I was very pleased to recently discover that James did a BBC concert in late 1993 to promote the "Laid" album. Since that fits into my big BBC project, it's a no-brainer that I post this unreleased concert here.

The sound quality is excellent. My only quibble is that there's no banter between songs whatsoever. Perhaps the BBC cut that out as part of their frequent habit of cutting concerts down to fit into an hour-long radio show, I don't know.

Actually, I had another kind of quibble, that some of the excellent songs from that album weren't included in the BBC broadcast. (Again, probably due to the BBC cutting things down.)  So I found another concert James did in France just two weeks earlier, which was broadcast on French radio at the time. Most of the songs played were the same, but three were different. So I've included those three at the end of this album.

This album contains ten of the 13 songs from "Laid." But the band has other very good songs, as the four non-Laid songs here show.

This album is an hour and eight minutes long. Just the BBC portion is 53 minutes.

01 Born of Frustration (James)
02 Sound (James)
03 Laid (James)
04 Knuckle Too Far (James)
05 Honest Joe (James)
06 Out to Get You (James)
07 Low Low Low (James)
08 Skindiving (James)
09 P. S. (James)
10 Lullaby (James)
11 Sometimes [Lester Piggott] (James)
12 Come Home (James)
13 Five-O [Edit] (James)
14 Say Something [Edit] (James)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16023995/Jmes_1993b_BBCInConcrtBrixtnAcadmyLondnBrtain__12-9-1993_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any really good pictures of the band in concert in 1993. So I used one that only shows the band's lead singer, Tim Booth. This is from the 1994 Woodstock concert.

The Beatles - Roxburgh Hall, Stowe School, Buckinghamshire, Britain, 4-4-1963

Here's something that's pretty amazing, if you're a Beatles fan. I'm writing this in December 2023. Back in September, there were some articles in the mainstream media about a recently discovered bootleg recording of a 1963 Beatles concert at the Stowe School in Buckinghamshire, Britain. Here's one such article. I suggest you read it to be familiar with what I'm talking about:

The Beatles Stowe School Concert Is Unlike Any Other Show in History (thedailybeast.com)

I'll explain more about the story behind this concert and how it got recorded in a bit. But first, I want to say that I tracked down that recording after reading about it, and I have to admit I was pretty disappointed, due to poor sound quality. Amongst many other problems, the vocals were so low that they often couldn't be heard at all. I tried my best to fix things with my limited ability using the artificial intelligence based audio editing programs that have come out in recent years, but the recording was too poor to be salvageable. I didn't even bother keeping a copy of the concert in my music collection, because it wasn't worth hearing for me.

Or so I thought. Enter Lord Reith. He's someone who has been editing and improving Beatles recordings for years. I don't know if he's a magician or what, but what he did with this Stowe School bootleg is nothing short of miraculous! There are still some problems, which I will get to in a bit, but he's completely transformed the sound quality, making it almost sound as good as some soundboard recordings. In particular, he did wonders to make the vocals audible. So, in my opinion, this has gone from not worth listening to more than once (if that) to being one of the most interesting and listenable live Beatles recordings, period. If you're a fan, and you can tolerate some sound quality issues, definitely give this a listen.

Now, let me explain a bit more about what this concert is and why it's so unique. Again, I highly recommend you read the above newspaper article, but in case you don't, here's a short summary. At the time of this concert, the Beatles were right on the cusp of being big stars in Britain, but they weren't quite there yet. They'd released their first single, "Love Me Do," in late 1962. It made the Top Twenty in Britain, which was a good start. Then, in January 1963, they released the single "Please Please Me." It reached Number One in most British charts. In late March 1963, they released their first album, also called "Please Please Me." That would go on to be a huge hit, staying in the Top Ten of the charts for over a year, which would set a record for the next fifty years. Then, only one week after this concert, the single "From Me to You" would be released, and that would be another Number One hit in Britain. 

So, mere weeks after this concert, Beatlemania hit Britain in a big way, just as it would hit the U.S. in early 1964. From that point on, pretty much all Beatles concerts would be short, a half an hour or less, and so filled with screams from overexcited girls that one couldn't really hear the music. If you're heard live Beatles recordings, then you know it's usually a pretty rough listening experience, due to all that screaming and cheering.

Previously, the Beatles had spent a couple of years in Hamburg, Germany, honing their music skills by playing in small clubs. There are some rough live recordings from that, and they're very interesting, but they consisted almost entirely of cover songs. 

This recording is unique, however, in part because the Stowe School is very unusual. In 1963, it was only for boys aged 13 to 18. As you can see from this photo, it was only for the children of the elite. It looks less like a high school and more like a palace! The Beatles were booked to perform there months before the concert date, when their fame was a lot less. But they upheld their agreement and played there in April 1963 anyway. Not only that, but they played for over an hour, instead of the mere half hour or less they were already doing for screaming fans in other shows. 

But what's really great is, because the audience considered entirely of boys, and well-behaved upper class boys, no less, there was no screaming. According to articles I read, most of the boys in the audience hadn't even heard of the Beatles yet, so they weren't swept up in any hysteria. The Beatles played virtually all the songs from the "Please Please Me" album, plus "From Me to You" and its B-side "Thank You Girl," despite the fact those last two songs still hadn't been released. Yet they also played a bunch of cover songs that they'd done in Hamburg. This is probably the last time most of those covers were played by them in concert, as they switched to doing very short concerts consisting entirely of their best known songs. So this is the one and only concert recording with a mix of the "old" Beatles of Hamburg cover versions and the "new" Beatles with their remarkable original songs. How lucky we are that one of the boys in the audience snuck in a tape recorder and recorded it.

So that's the good news. The bad news is, even after Lord Reith's miraculous transformation of the recording, there still are sound quality issues. The biggest problem is the banter between songs. There was a lot banter, between almost all the songs. Unfortunately, the recording of those bits were very quiet, way more quiet than the music. So I suspect there just wasn't much there on the recording for Lord Reith to work with. I took his version, with the banter way down low, and boosted the volume of those bits so the banter can be clearly heard. But unfortunately, all that means in that quiet jibber jabber is now louder jibber jabber. I've included a couple of extra text files. One of them is a list of all the changes Lord Reith made to make this listenable. The other is a transcript of what he and other die-hard Beatles fans have managed to figure out from the banter. If you read that as you listen, you can catch most of it. But otherwise, the talking is pretty hard to understand, other than the occasional phrase.

Due to this seemingly unfixable problem, I'm posting two versions of this album. One contains the banter and the songs, and the other one contains just the songs. I much, much prefer the music only version. The banter is interesting to hear once or twice, but beyond that, it drags down the overall recording. So maybe you'll want to download both, and listen to one version and then the other.

There's one other big problem. The tape in the tape recorder only lasted for about sixty minutes. The recorder was up at the stage and the boy who recorded it was sitting in the audience, so when the tape ran out, there was no way for him to flip it over and keep recording. Thus, the end of a second version of "I Saw Her Standing There" was cut off, plus all of the last two songs, "Sweet Little Sixteen" and "Long Tall Sally." Most of the second version of  "I Saw Her Standing There" survived, and luckily it happened to be the only song played twice. So I patched in the ending from the first version earlier in the show. But the last two songs are lost.

And there's one more lost song. Right before that second version of "I Saw Her Standing There," the Beatles played "Money (That's What I Want)." Unfortunately, there's only about twenty seconds of this on the recording, and then it gets replaced by the hit version of "Surfin' Bird" by the Trashmen! Probably what happened was that the boy who recorded it accidentally recorded that song off the radio over the Beatles concert. I removed the snippet of "Money" and the little bit of banter before it, because it's frustrating to get only such a short part of that. 

Furthermore, note that even after all of Lord Reith's edits, there were still some problems with the vocals. I used UVR5 to boost all the vocals a bit. I think that helped to make the singing easier to hear. But some songs are better than others. For "Matchbox" in particular, only bits and pieces of the lead vocals can be heard. I figure that's because that song was sung by Ringo Starr, the drummer, and maybe he was sitting back and too busy with drumming to keep his mouth near the microphone all the time. (That reminds me: there are no lead vocals from George Harrison because he was recovering from a cold.)

If you want to know even more about this remarkable concert, I recommend this link:

The Beatles concert at Roxburgh Hall, Stowe School in Buckingham on Apr 4, 1963 (the-paulmccartney-project.com)

It includes lots of great photos and stories. You can learn the whole story of how this bootleg came to be recorded and then rediscovered decades later. It's really interesting stuff, if you're a Beatles fan. That also includes a transcript of the banter between songs.

Here's the track list to the version that includes the banter. This version is 58 minutes long.

01 talk (Beatles)
02 I Saw Her Standing There (Beatles)
03 Too Much Monkey Business (Beatles)
04 talk (Beatles)
05 Love Me Do (Beatles)
06 talk (Beatles)
07 Some Other Guy (Beatles)
08 talk (Beatles)
09 Misery (Beatles)
10 talk (Beatles)
11 I Just Don't Understand (Beatles)
12 talk (Beatles)
13 A Shot of Rhythm and Blues (Beatles)
14 talk (Beatles)
15 Boys (Beatles)
16 talk (Beatles)
17 Matchbox (Beatles)
18 talk (Beatles)
19 From Me to You (Beatles)
20 talk (Beatles)
21 Thank You Girl (Beatles)
22 talk (Beatles)
23 Memphis, Tennessee (Beatles)
24 talk (Beatles)
25 A Taste of Honey (Beatles)
26 talk (Beatles)
27 Twist and Shout (Beatles)
28 talk (Beatles)
29 Anna [Go to Him] (Beatles)
30 talk (Beatles)
31 Please Please Me (Beatles)
32 talk (Beatles)
33 The Hippy Hippy Shake (Beatles)
34 talk (Beatles)
35 I'm Talking about You (Beatles)
36 talk (Beatles)
37 Ask Me Why (Beatles)
38 talk (Beatles)
39 Till There Was You (Beatles)
40 talk (Beatles)
41 I Saw Her Standing There [Edit] (Beatles)

And here's the link to the version with the banter:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RqK9Aoq6

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/ZJ2vjwIBlYO5yRK/file 

Here's the track list for the version with only the music. This version is 50 minutes long, eight minutes shorter than the other version.

01 I Saw Her Standing There (Beatles)
02 Too Much Monkey Business (Beatles)
03 Love Me Do (Beatles)
04 Some Other Guy (Beatles)
05 Misery (Beatles)
06 I Just Don't Understand (Beatles)
07 A Shot of Rhythm and Blues (Beatles)
08 Boys (Beatles)
09 Matchbox (Beatles)
10 From Me to You (Beatles)
11 Thank You Girl (Beatles)
12 Memphis, Tennessee (Beatles)
13 A Taste of Honey (Beatles)
14 Twist and Shout (Beatles)
15 Anna [Go to Him] (Beatles)
16 Please Please Me (Beatles)
17 The Hippy Hippy Shake (Beatles)
18 I'm Talking about You (Beatles)
19 Ask Me Why (Beatles)
20 Till There Was You (Beatles)
21 I Saw Her Standing There [Edit] (Beatles)

Here's the link to the version with no banter, and only songs. 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jQXFfpAb

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/02ggG53jP4MyIFd/file

Again, especially if you're not a die-hard fan, I recommend just getting the music only version.

For the cover photo, I used one of the photos from this exact concert and colorized it, using the Palette program. You can see a larger and uncropped version of the original black and white photo in one of the above article links.

The New Pornographers - Annandale Hotel, Sydney, Australia, 10-12-2008

The New Pornographers have been described as an indie rock supergroup or a musical collective. However, you think of it, it contains a lot of talented singer-songwriters, including A.C. Newman, Neko Case, Dan Bejar, and Kathryn Calder, and they've done a lot of great music together. The vast majority of the songs have been written by Newman, with some by Bejar, but sometimes the songs are sung by others in the band.

I haven't posted anything by them up until now because I didn't have anything rare or unreleased to post. But I recently found a soundboard concert bootleg, so here it is. 

The band has only released one live album, which is simply called "Live!" It's from their 2006 tour, which is two years away from the year of this concert, so the set lists are somewhat similar. However, the "Live!" album is only sold at concerts and through the band's website. Also, its songs come from many concerts done over a six month time period. I prefer complete concerts like this one. 

Singer Neko Case has had a successful solo career. As a result, she doesn't always tour with the New Pornographers. But luckily, she performed at this concert.

It's not their most famous song by any means, but I simply love their song "The Laws Have Changed." So I'm happy it's included here. Also, note a cover of "Don't Let Me Down" by ELO, which the band has never done on record.

This album is an hour and 13 minutes long.

01 My Rights Versus Yours (New Pornographers)
02 Use It (New Pornographers)
03 The Laws Have Changed (New Pornographers)
04 talk (New Pornographers)
05 All the Old Showstoppers (New Pornographers)
06 Jackie, Dressed in Cobras (New Pornographers)
07 talk (New Pornographers)
08 Testament to Youth in Verse (New Pornographers)
09 The Bones of an Idol (New Pornographers)
10 All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth (New Pornographers)
11 Unguided (New Pornographers)
12 Mass Romantic (New Pornographers)
13 Adventures in Solitude (New Pornographers)
14 talk (New Pornographers)
15 Sing Me Spanish Techno (New Pornographers)
16 The Bleeding Heart Show (New Pornographers)
17 talk (New Pornographers)
18 Don't Bring Me Down (New Pornographers)
19 Twin Cinema (New Pornographers)
20 The Slow Descent into Alcoholism (New Pornographers)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16021822/TNewPrnogrphrs_2008_AnnandleHtelSydnyAustrlia__10-12-2008_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any good band photos from 2008. When I went looking for photos in 2007 instead, I found this one of Neko Case, from a concert in Austin, Texas, in August 2007. It would be more ideal to have a photo of the whole band, but I just really liked this one, especially the contrast of the orange and blue lighting.

Billy Joel - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Wembley Arena, London, Britain, 5-26-1990

I've posted two Billy Joel BBC concerts. I thought I was all done with his BBC material, but I found one more concert. Here it is.

In my opinion, Joel was past his creative peak by 1990, the year of this concert. Perhaps he felt that way too, because he only released one more album of original material in 1993. Since then, he's basically given up songwriting, which is pretty unique for people of his fame and talent. That said, he still wrote a bunch of quality songs since his previous BBC concert in 1984, and naturally he did most of his best songs during this concert.

An additional bonus is that this is a rather long concert. It's about 20 minutes longer than that 1984 BBC concert. So if you were to listen to just one, this probably would be my recommendation. The sound quality is excellent. I didn't have to change anything.

This album is two hours and nine minutes long.

Oh, and by the way, since I now have three Billy Joel BBC albums, I changed the cover art of the first two at the same time I'm posting this, so they all have the same font size and type.

01 Intro - Storm Front (Billy Joel)
02 Allentown (Billy Joel)
03 Prelude - Angry Young Man (Billy Joel)
04 talk (Billy Joel)
05 Scenes from an Italian Restaurant (Billy Joel)
06 talk (Billy Joel)
07 The Downeaster Alexa (Billy Joel)
08 Goodnight Saigon (Billy Joel)
09 talk (Billy Joel)
10 Rule Britannia (Billy Joel)
11 I Go to Extremes (Billy Joel)
12 Pressure (Billy Joel)
13 talk (Billy Joel)
14 Leningrad (Billy Joel)
15 My Life (Billy Joel)
16 An Innocent Man (Billy Joel)
17 talk (Billy Joel)
18 Shameless (Billy Joel)
19 talk (Billy Joel)
20 We Didn't Start the Fire (Billy Joel)
21 Shout (Billy Joel)
22 Uptown Girl (Billy Joel)
23 It's Still Rock 'N' Roll to Me (Billy Joel)
24 You May Be Right (Billy Joel)
25 Only the Good Die Young (Billy Joel)
26 talk (Billy Joel)
27 A Matter of Trust (Billy Joel)
28 Big Shot (Billy Joel)
29 That's Not Her Style (Billy Joel)
30 talk (Billy Joel)
31 Piano Man (Billy Joel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3BTrbpmz

The cover photo was taken at Wembley Arena in 1990. However, he performed there a bunch of times, so I don't know if it's from this exact concert.

Dave Davies - The Bottom Line, New York City, 11-29-1997

It's been too long since I've posted anything related to the Kinks, my second favorite band (after the Beatles, of course). 

This is a great concert by Dave Davies, lead guitarist for the Kinks and brother of the band's lead singer and main songwriter, Ray Davies. (By the way, their last name is pronounced like it's "Davis.") I've posted some of Dave Davies' stuff already, but I just want to reiterate that he gets overlooked due to his more famous and prolific brother. 

If Ray Davies was both the Lennon and McCartney of the Beatles, then it's a very apt comparison to consider Dave Davies the George Harrison of the group. For one, they're both lead guitarists. But also, Dave would write some songs, typically only one an album, but they'd be at the same standard as the rest, and fit in stylistically.

By the time of this concert, the Kinks had petered out, with this last concert in 1996. Naturally, Dave switched to a solo career. In 2000, he released an album called "Rock Bottom: Live at the Bottom Line." The songs on that were selected from a series of concerts at the Bottom Line in late 1997. This was one of those concerts. However, I ran this album through the copyright violation detector at YouTube, and it only found two similarities ("Wicked Annabella" and one of the talking tracks). So I think this has very little overlap in terms of exact performances, even though most of the songs were the same.

In my opinion, this concert is significantly better than the "Rock Bottom" live album. One big advantage is that it's longer by about 20 minutes. So it has all the songs that one has, plus a few more. In terms of sound quality, it's an excellent soundboard, just as good as the official album. Also, I prefer to hear full concerts, warts and all, instead of live albums culled from a bunch of different concerts, so one can get a better sense of what the live experience was really like.

Note that eleven of the songs here were written or co-written by Dave, but eight were solely written by his brother Ray. I believe the Ray ones are tracks 3, 4, 5, 9, 17, 19, 20, 23, and 30. Plus, tracks 11, 29, and 31 are covers.

This album is an hour and 32 minutes long.

01 talk (Dave Davies)
02 Look through Any Doorway (Dave Davies)
03 Wicked Annabella (Dave Davies)
04 I Need You (Dave Davies)
05 She's Got Everything (Dave Davies)
06 talk (Dave Davies)
07 Creepin' Jean (Dave Davies)
08 Love Me Till the Sun Shines (Dave Davies)
09 Tired of Waiting for You (Dave Davies)
10 talk (Dave Davies)
11 Milk Cow Blues (Dave Davies)
12 talk (Dave Davies)
13 It's Too Late (Dave Davies)
14 talk (Dave Davies)
15 Imagination's Real (Dave Davies)
16 talk (Dave Davies)
17 Party Line (Dave Davies)
18 Love Gets You (Dave Davies)
19 Picture Book (Dave Davies)
20 Too Much on My Mind (Dave Davies)
21 talk (Dave Davies)
22 Death of a Clown (Dave Davies)
23 Get Back in Line (Dave Davies)
24 Strangers (Dave Davies)
25 talk (Dave Davies)
26 Fortis Green (Dave Davies)
27 Living on a Thin Line (Dave Davies)
28 talk (Dave Davies)
29 One Night (Dave Davies)
30 All Day and All of the Night (Dave Davies)
31 Money [That's What I Want] (Dave Davies)
32 David Watts (Dave Davies)
33 You're Lookin' Fine (Dave Davies)
34 Lincoln County (Dave Davies)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mNM5okXX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/inpeHzV27vS89I5/file

The cover photo shows Dave Davies playing at this very venue, the Bottom Line in New York City, but in 1999 instead of 1997.

Depeche Mode - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 10-8-1983

Back in the early 1980s, when I was an early teenager, I enjoyed the first few Depeche Mode albums. I gradually lost track of them by the end of the 1980s though. It just so happens that although Depeche Mode hasn't performed for the BBC all that much, they did do two concerts in the early 1980s, which still is my favorite time period of their music. So here's the first of those two.

This concert took place shortly after the release of the "Construction Time Again" studio album. Depeche Mode was still rising in popularity so they probably felt they needed the BBC's help to get more publicity. 

Two more songs, "And Then..." and "Boys Say Go," were played at this concert. However, they weren't on any broadcasts or bootlegs of it, so they don't appear here. Also, most bootlegs say this concert happened on October 6th, but according to a definitive Depeche Mode wiki, it actually happened on October 8th.

This album is an hour and 11 minutes long.

01 Everything Counts (Depeche Mode)
02 Now, This Is Fun (Depeche Mode)
03 Two Minute Warning (Depeche Mode)
04 Shame (Depeche Mode)
05 See You (Depeche Mode)
06 Get the Balance Right (Depeche Mode)
07 Love, in Itself (Depeche Mode)
08 Pipeline (Depeche Mode)
09 The Landscape Is Changing (Depeche Mode)
10 Photographic (Depeche Mode)
11 Told You So (Depeche Mode)
12 talk (Depeche Mode)
13 New Life (Depeche Mode)
14 More than a Party (Depeche Mode)
15 The Meaning of Love (Depeche Mode)
16 Just Can't Get Enough (Depeche Mode)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ktQ4erAr

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/V9SfIsHp53K8lcY/file

This cover photo may or may not be from this exact concert, I don't know. What I do know if that I found it on the expired BBC page for this concert. So at least it's not from this exact concert, it's from that time period. Too bad it only shows two of the four band members at the time.

John Fogerty - Swamp Water - Non-Album Tracks (2005-2013)

Boy, I sure am taking my time posting John Fogerty non-album tracks albums. The first one was posted in 2019. The second one was in 2022. This is the third, and there's one more after this. I hope I'll get to posting that one faster.

Five of the 12 songs have been officially released. "Oh, Pretty Woman," "Comin' Down the Road," and "Rockin' in the Free World" are from the usual various artists compilations. The last two songs, "Mystic Highway" and "Train of Fools" are the only two new originals from the 2013 Fogerty album "Wrote a Song for Everyone," which is otherwise all duets of classic hits.

The first two songs are from an episode of the TV show "CMT's Crossroads" and are duets with Keith Urban. "Rockin' with the Rhythm of the Rain" is from a 2011 TV show "Girls Night Out." "Swamp Water" and the acoustic version of "Fortunate Son" are both from the TV show "The Finder." I don't know where the acoustic version of "Green River" is from, but it's unreleased and it sounds like it was done in a recording studio. "Deja Vu (All Over Again)" is also an acoustic version that was done live in 2008.

This album is 41 minutes long.

01 Walk in the Country with Me [Live] (John Fogerty & Keith Urban)
02 Rambunctious Boy [Acoustic Version] (John Fogerty & Keith Urban)
03 Deja Vu [All Over Again] [Live Acoustic] (John Fogerty)
04 Oh, Pretty Woman (Bruce Springsteen & John Fogerty)
05 Comin' Down the Road [Live] (John Fogerty)
06 Rockin' in the Free World (John Fogerty & Keith Urban)
07 Rockin' with the Rhythm of the Rain (John Fogerty)
08 Swamp Water [Instrumental] (John Fogerty)
09 Green River [Acoustic Version] (John Fogerty)
10 Fortunate Son [Acoustic Version] (John Fogerty)
11 Mystic Highway (John Fogerty)
12 Train of Fools (John Fogerty)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16017264/JohnFoge_2005-2013_SwmpWaer_atse.zip.html

I sure am happy with this album cover because it perfectly fits the album title. This comes from a poster at the Fillmore in San Francisco in 1997. I need to remind myself to use concert posters more often. I had to make some edits in Photoshop to get the rectangular poster to fit in a square space. I raised up the crocodile and added the album title.

Annie Lennox - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Riverside Studios, London, Britain, 6-26-2003

As part of my big BBC project, I tried looking for a good BBC concert by the Eurythmics, but I haven't come across one yet. However, Annie Lennox was the lead singer of the Eurythmics, and went on to have a very successful solo career. I found a good unreleased BBC concert from her.

This is a particularly well timed concert. After Lennox's first two solo albums were massive sellers. "Diva" in 1992 (which sold seven million copies worldwide), and "Medusa" in 1996 (which sold a few million). Her next album, "Bare," still sold about a million copies. But after that, her sales dropped quite a lot. So this concert came right at the end of her very popular phase, and naturally contains the biggest hits from her early solo albums.

There are also three Eurythmics hits here: "Here Comes the Rain Again," "Would I Lie to You," and "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)." I'm guessing there were more, but this is a common case of the BBC editing a concert down to fit into an hour-long radio show slot.

This album is 55 minutes long.

UPDATE: On February 28, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is exactly the same, but I renamed the album to "Volume 1" after finding another BBC concert from her that took place after this.

01 Little Bird (Annie Lennox)
02 A Thousand Beautiful Things (Annie Lennox)
03 No More I Love You's (Annie Lennox)
04 Walking on Broken Glass (Annie Lennox)
05 Pavement Cracks (Annie Lennox)
06 Cold (Annie Lennox)
07 talk (Annie Lennox)
08 Here Comes the Rain Again (Annie Lennox)
09 Wonderful (Annie Lennox)
10 Bitter Pill (Annie Lennox)
11 Would I Lie to You (Annie Lennox)
12 Sweet Dreams [Are Made of This] (Annie Lennox)
13 Why (Annie Lennox)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Exec9pgw

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/mRR4AiXEFjBBSYv/file

The cover photo was taken during an appearance on "The Today Show" TV show in New York City in July 2003.

Leonard Cohen - Beloved Comrade - Non-Album Tracks (1971-1976)

I recently posted a few Leonard Cohen albums based on the totally obscure 1970 copyright extension release that was essentially publicly unavailable until I made my posts. I highly recommend you check those out if you missed them in my big number of new posts lately. In particular, I recommend the album "News from the Authorities," made up of stray tracks from that release. Here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/11/leonard-cohen-news-from-authorities-non.html

It just so happens that I already had a bunch of Cohen stray tracks albums that I'd made years ago. I'd only posted the first one though ("Out of the Land of Heaven") because there's just way too much good music to post and it takes me time to get to it all. But putting together that "News from the Authorities" album got me in the mood to post the rest of my Cohen stray tracks albums. Here's the next one. I have five more after this.

Everything here but the first song is officially unreleased. The first song is a studio track that appeared on the mostly live album "Live Songs." I've included it here because I feel it is basically a stray track, since it didn't really fit on a live album. 

All the other songs come from concert bootlegs, with the exception of the poem recitation "Two Went to Sleep," which is from a radio show. The sound quality is generally pretty good, though there are some exceptions, rare performances where only an audience bootleg was available. 

Some of the songs here are covers, like "As Time Goes By," "Kevin Barry," "The Banks Are Made of Marble," "We Shall Not Be Moved," and "Beloved Comrade." Although "The Banks Are Made of Marble" is mostly an original creation with just a part of it being the cover song. Cohen learned at least three of these songs ("Kevin Barry," "We Shall Not Be Moved," and "Beloved Comrade") from a socialist song book he had when he was a teenager.

"Chelsea Hotel No. 1" is an interesting case. I don't know if that's the official name or not, but it fits. One of Cohen's most famous songs is "Chelsea Hotel No. 2," which raises the question of what happened to No. 1? This is an early version of that song, and it's basically the same for the first couple of minutes. But then the lyrics diverged, and the song kept going, with lots of new verses. "Chelsea Hotel No. 2" is about three minutes long, but "Chelsea Hotel No. 1" is seven and a half minutes long. 

"The Broken Lip" is a particularly amusing thing. As you can hear in the recording, someone in the audience shouted out something about a "broken lip." Cohen immediately made up a song on the spot based on this phrase. It seemed to end, but then Cohen found a new burst of inspiration and kept going. Then that too seemed to end, only for him to come up with more. He ended up making a pretty interesting four minute long song based on a random shout out from the crowd.

That just leaves a few songs. "Song to the Machines" is an original that was never released and was only played in concert once, so it may or may not have been improvised. "Beauty Salon" is an early version of "Don't Go Home with Your Hard-On" and "Guerrero" is an early version of "Iodine." Both of these have lots of lyrical differences. They were meant to be part of a mid-1970s album called "Songs for Rebecca." But Cohen got involved with co-writing songs with famous producer Phil Spector, so "Songs for Rebecca" was scrapped and songs from it were redone for the 1977 album with Spector, "Death of a Ladies' Man," as well as the next album "Recent Songs."

"Je Veux Vivre Tout Seul" is mostly a French version of Cohen's famous song "Bird on a Wire." However, some of the English versions are sung as well. I don't speak French, but Cohen was a fluent French speaker, and I understand at least some of the French lyrics are different and not just translations of the English ones.

Finally, "Blessed Is the Memory" is a very early rarity. I have a version of the late 1960s stray track album "Out of the Land of Heaven." But it wasn't released at that time, and Cohen performed it some in mid-1970s concerts using a different arrangement. I figured that was worthy of inclusion too.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Queen Victoria (Leonard Cohen)
02 As Time Goes By (Leonard Cohen)
03 Kevin Barry (Leonard Cohen)
04 The Banks Are Made of Marble (Leonard Cohen)
05 The Broken Lip [Improvised Song] (Leonard Cohen)
06 Chelsea Hotel No. 1 (Leonard Cohen)
07 Song to the Machines (Leonard Cohen)
08 We Shall Not Be Moved (Leonard Cohen)
09 Beloved Comrade (Leonard Cohen)
10 Two Went to Sleep [Poem] (Leonard Cohen)
11 Beauty Salon [Early Version of Don't Go Home with Your Hard-On] (Leonard Cohen)
12 Guerrero [Early Version of Iodine] (Leonard Cohen)
13 Je Veux Vivre Tout Seul [French Version of Bird on a Wire] (Leonard Cohen)
14 Blessed Is the Memory (Leonard Cohen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16010574/LeonardC_1971-1976_BlovdComrde_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a publicity photo from the mid-1970s.

Mark Knopfler & the Notting Hillbillies - The Maltings, Snape, Britain, 5-15-1990

I recently started posting some solo stuff from Mark Knopfler, the leader of Dire Straits, and I plan on posting a bunch more. But I decided that before I get any further, it would be good to post a couple of things from his early 1990s band the Notting Hillbillies.

I put Knopfler's name in the title of this post to help his fans find this music. But actually, it's not entirely accurate to call the Notting Hillbillies Mark Knopfler's band. The band put out only one album, in 1990, called "Missing... Presumed Having a Good Time." That happened during a time when Knopfler was still feeling burned out from the massive success of Dire Straits. With the Notting Hillbillies, he could be just another member of the band, and take part in a much more low key project than Dire Straits ever was. On their sole album, I believe Knopfler only wrote and sang one song. The band was more rootsy, doing lots of country and blues covers.

So, in theory, Knopfler was just one member. But in reality, he was a massive star and everyone else in the band were relative nobodies. Few people would have paid any attention had it not been for his involvement, and the band went just as far as the amount of time and energy he was willing to put into it. They toured in 1990. But then Dire Straits reunited for a final album and world tour in 1991 and 1992, so the Notting Hillbillies went into hiatus while that happened. Then Knopfler went on to other things, but he still reformed the band from time to time. They did a couple dozen concerts between 1993 and 1999, often for charity concerts. There have been no reunions since then.

The roots of the band went waaaay back, thanks to the relationship between Knoplfer and band member and guitar player Steve Phillips. They met in 1968, when both of them were about twenty years old. They were a musical duo for about five years, called "The Duolian String Pickers." After Knopfler left town in the mid-1970s (and later went on to fame and fortune with Dire Straits), Phillips connected with a singer-songwriter named Brendan Crocker, and played with him for many years. So the core of the Notting Hillbillies was Knopfler, Phillips, and Crocker, with all them taking turns singing songs, plus three more musicians playing pedal steel, bass, and drums.

The sole Notting Hillbillies studio album is nice, but I find it a bit slick and overproduced. I think they were better in concert. Plus, they only did 11 songs on that album, but they played more than 50 songs in concert, with the vast majority of those being covers.

Given all that, I think this concert here is an ideal introduction to the band if you've never heard their music before, even more so than their studio album. It's a soundboard bootleg, and the sound quality is excellent. Knoplfer only sang about a third of the songs, but his famous lead guitar playing was all over the place. Plus, the other band members all admirably played their roles.

Only the first 12 songs here are from the 1990 Snape concert in the album title. The last four are from a benefit concert held in Newcastle, Britain, on July 6, 1993. For that, I only included the songs that weren't performed at the Snape concert or weren't on another album I'll soon be posting. By chance, that happened to be four Dire Straits songs, even though it was a Notting Hillbillies concert and not a Dire Straits one.

For the Snape concert, there's no banter between songs, and often a minimum amount of applause at the ends of songs. I suspect this was broadcast on TV or radio, which would explain the excellent sound quality, but probably everything but the music was edited out. Chances are, there were more songs that didn't get included. And for both the Snape and Newcastle portions, I felt the lead vocals were too low in the mix, so I boosted them for all the songs by using the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long. Just the Snape portion is 55 minutes long.

01 One Woman Man (Notting Hillbillies)
02 When It Comes to You (Notting Hillbillies)
03 Water of Love (Notting Hillbillies)
04 That's Alright, Mama (Notting Hillbillies)
05 Your Own Sweet Way (Notting Hillbillies)
06 Run Me Down (Notting Hillbillies)
07 Hobo's Lullaby (Notting Hillbillies)
08 I Think You Love Me Too Much (Notting Hillbillies)
09 Roll, Roll, Roll (Notting Hillbillies)
10 Railroad Worksong (Notting Hillbillies)
11 Feel like Going Home (Notting Hillbillies)
12 Dallas Rag [Instrumental] (Notting Hillbillies)
13 Calling Elvis (Notting Hillbillies)
14 So Far Away (Notting Hillbillies)
15 Why Worry (Notting Hillbillies)
16 Setting Me Up (Notting Hillbillies)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16014083/NottngHillbllies_1990_ThMaltngsSnpeBrtain__5-15-1990_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken during the band's appearance on the Saturday Night Live TV show in 1990.

Electric Light Orchestra - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: ICAA Benefit, Wembley Empire Pool, London, Britain, 6-2-1978

This is the same concert as the one presented on the official Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) album "Live at Wembley '78." However, this has much better sound quality.

Instead of trying to explain the situation myself, I'm going to quote the Wikipedia entry on this album at length, since it does a good job:

"The sound on this album has led to accusations of the band lip syncing, as did the earlier video from which this CD was taken. However it has come to light that the sound used on the television broadcast... in 1978 was a poorly mixed effort in mono sound that used a lot of the backing tapes that were used admittedly by the band due to sound problems caused by the huge metal and fibreglass stage set. The tapes were for the band's ears only, to help them keep time, and should not have been heard by the audience."

In 2006, a new DVD version of the concert was released. This used the original tapes from the concert, presenting it in true stereo for the first time. Furthermore, all the overdubbed backing tapes and other problems were removed. Unfortunately though, this new version has never been released on CD.

So that's where I came in. I made sure this recording was based on the superior 2006 DVD. But even then there was a problem, because I noticed the vocals were way too low in the mix. This may have been a deliberate choice of singer-songwriter Jeff Lynne, I don't know. But regardless, I boosted the vocals relative to the instruments, and I think it sounds a lot better that way.

This actually was a benefit concert that was broadcast by the BBC at the time. ICAA stands for Invalid Children's Aid Association. The band was introduced by actor Tony Curtis, and some British royals attended. This also isn't the complete concert, just the portion that was broadcast. The rest is not in public circulation.

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Standin' in the Rain (Electric Light Orchestra)
02 Night in the City (Electric Light Orchestra)
03 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
04 Turn to Stone (Electric Light Orchestra)
05 Tightrope (Electric Light Orchestra)
06 Telephone Line (Electric Light Orchestra)
07 Rockaria (Electric Light Orchestra)
08 Wild West Hero (Electric Light Orchestra)
09 Showdown (Electric Light Orchestra)
10 talk (Electric Light Orchestra)
11 Sweet Talkin' Woman (Electric Light Orchestra)
12 Mr. Blue Sky (Electric Light Orchestra)
13 Do Ya (Electric Light Orchestra)
14 Livin' Thing (Electric Light Orchestra)
15 Roll Over Beethoven (Electric Light Orchestra)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16011022/ElectrcLghtO_1978_BBSessonsVolum4ICAABnefitWemblyEmpirPoolLondnBrtain__6-2-1978_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of band leader Jeff Lynne was taken in London just a week after this concert, on June 9, 1978.

David Gilmour - On TV and Radio, Volume 2: 1987-2006

I started out trying to make a series of BBC albums for Gilmour, but I discovered too much interesting non-BBC stuff to leave out. That's particularly the case with this volume, in which only tracks 5 and 6 were recorded for an unreleased 2002 BBC studio session.

A majority of the songs here are from DVDs. "Deep in the Blues" is from a tribute concert to guitar pioneer Les Paul, that was later put out on DVD. "Don't" is very unusual compared to Gilmour's usual style. It's a cover of a Leiber and Stoller song that was performed by Elvis Presley, and was done at a tribute concert in 2001. It later showed up on the DVD "David Gilmour in Concert," even though it didn't really fit with the rest of the music from that. Tracks 7 through 9 are from a 2004 concert called "The Strat Pack," that was a tribute to a guitar, the Stratocraster, rather than a person. That too came out on DVD. 

That leaves just a few songs. "Ah, Robertson, It's You" was played on the "Saturday Night Live" TV show in 1987. Since it was never released, I guess there's some controversy about the song title, and some call it "Song for My Sara" instead. "On the Turning Away" was done for an Amnesty International benefit concert, which is fitting considering the subject matter of the song. "Dominos" was a bonus track on some editions of Gilmour's "Live in Gdansk" album, even though it was recorded in Paris.

Note that trcks 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9 were original done for Pink Floyd albums. And while "Dominos" was never a Pink Floyd song per se, it was written by Syd Barrett, the first lead singer of Pink Floyd.

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Ah, Robertson, It's You [Song for My Sara] [Instrumental] (David Gilmour)
02 Deep in the Blues [Instrumental] (David Gilmour)
03 On the Turning Away (David Gilmour)
04 Don't (David Gilmour)
05 Fat Old Sun (David Gilmour)
06 Smile (David Gilmour)
07 Marooned [Instrumental] (David Gilmour)
08 Coming Back to Life (David Gilmour)
09 Sorrow (David Gilmour)
10 Dominoes (David Gilmour)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16010870/DavdGlmour_1987-2006_OnTVndRdioVolum2_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken at the Secret Policeman's Third Ball in London, Britain, on March 26, 1987.

Al Stewart - Greatest Misses (1974-1996) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's another Mike Solof guest post of Al Stewart's music. This one is a companion to the other one I posted a few days ago. That one, "Greatest Alternate Misses," was made up of alternate versions of songs from Stewart's albums. Whereas this one is made up of songs that didn't make any of Stewart's studio albums. 

Like the other album, it mostly is sourced from the massive 50-plus CD box set, "The Admiralty Lights." However, two of the songs ("The Bear Farmers of Birnam" and "Merry Monks") are from a fan club album. I found this a surprisingly strong collection. I was left wondering why so many of these were considered mere outtakes.

If you want to know more, I suggest you read the PDF that is included in the download zip, as is the case with Solof's other posted albums.

This album is an hour long.

01 Willie the King [Outtake] (Al Stewart)
02 Jackdaw [Demo] (Al Stewart)
03 Ringing of Bells [Outtake] (Al Stewart)
04 Candy Come Back [Outtake] (Al Stewart)
05 Here in Angola [Live] (Al Stewart)
06 [The World According To] Garp (Al Stewart)
07 The Bear Farmers of Birnam [Live] (Al Stewart)
08 Night Meeting [Outtake] (Al Stewart)
09 Where Are They Now [Outtake] (Al Stewart)
10 In the Dark [Outtake] (Al Stewart)
11 Ghostly Horses of the Plain [Alternate Version] (Al Stewart)
12 The Coldest Winter in Memory [Demo] (Al Stewart)
13 Don't Forget Me [Outtake] (Al Stewart)
14 Merry Monks [Home Demo] (Al Stewart)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16010587/AlStwt_1974-1996_GreatstMsses_atse.zip.html

The cover art is based on the cover art for "The Admiralty Lights" box set. But I believe this is a zoomed in section of an alternate version.